Chapter Text
She is having a nightmare. The man in purple is bearing down on her. There is pain and fear and everything is blurred and red. His laughter rings in her head and scares her. She wants to wake up, needs to get away from this man, but she continues to sleep. The blue woman is there now and her twisted smile haunts her.
Wake up! Wake up!
Her eyelids flicker a few times before her eyes open, blinking and squinting in the harsh strip lighting. As she takes in her surroundings, she feels confusion and fear and she opens her mouth to cry out. Something is blocking her throat, muting her voice and she reaches up to tug at it when strong hands grasp hers.
Faces hover over hers. One shines a light in her eyes, another tells her to cough as The Thing is removed from her throat. “You had an accident.” “Lucky to be alive.” “In a coma.” Unfamiliar voices speak and ask her questions: What year is it? What is her name? She croaks her answers, unsure if the voices are listening.
“Mrs Cheng! Mr Dupain! She’s awake!” A familiar voice calls out from behind a curtain.
Footsteps squeak on linoleum.
Chaos in hushed tones happens around her and she tries to ask where she is and what happened to her, but nobody can hear her.
The blonde boy, the one whose voice she thinks she knows, holds her hand and smiles tenderly. “I was so worried about you. I’m sorry.”
“Wha- -appened?” She manages to say.
There had been a man in purple and a woman in glass. She remembered that. There were screams and pain. The world became hazy. Then an angel, dressed in black leather scooped her up and ran faster than she’d ever gone. After that, nothing.
She raises a hand to her head, feeling a bandage over one side, she follows it to where her earlobe is torn.
More figures stand at the door now. A man and a woman. She focuses harder until they come into stark relief. Maman and papa! She reaches a hand out towards them.
“Marinette! We were so worried!”
“We’re so glad you’re awake!”
Marinette. That’s her name. There’s something else she was known as, but what?
Lucky Charm!
“You’ve been in a medically induced coma for two weeks.” A doctor said. “You had a blow to the head and your brain was swollen, we decided to put you into the coma to allow your brain to heal. Memory loss is normal and might well be temporary, but there is likely some period of time surrounding the accident that you will never recall. Fortunately, Adrien here was nearby when you fell and he brought you into the emergency room. He saved your life.”
He does that a lot. He saves my life.
“You need to rest. There will be a lot more tests to see how well you’re doing, we’ll schedule a visit from a physiotherapist to help get you moving again and a psychologist will come and give you some tips on how to deal with snippets of your memory coming back. I don’t want to worry you, but some of it might be traumatic.”
Adrien. The doctor says he never left. He looks worn and exhausted. She wants to ask him more questions.
Maman strokes her hair. “Chérie, you were mugged. There was an attack in the street and you must have been pushed over and hit your head on the pavement. You had cuts on your hands and bruises on your arms and legs. You defended yourself.”
Marinette knows that’s not the real story so Adrien knows otherwise, too. It was the purple man. Chat Noir brought her here in his arms. She remembers the concern in those green eyes before the darkness took over. Before she was trapped inside her nightmare.
Chat Noir. Ladybug.
“Adrien?” She calls out for him. The only one who can tell her the truth.
“I’m here,” he says. “I’m still here.”
“Stay with me. I need you.”
He nods. He’s not leaving her, she knows. He’ll protect her with every ounce of strength he has and she will defend him with her life. He is her partner.
Hawk Moth. The purple man. She was in his lair. That’s where the woman in glass was. She was sleeping, like Marinette had been, only without the wires and tubes and doctors. Did she have nightmares, too?
The doctors and nurses come in and out of the room, checking charts and machines, changing bags of various liquids that are being pushed into her body. They take her pulse, her temperature, look in her eyes and ask her to follow the end of their finger. They ask more questions. Who is the President? What school does she attend? It’s too much, too many people. She wants them to go away. She’s tired.
Finally, they leave. They wish to speak to her parents. Adrien stays.
“My earrings?” She touches her ragged earlobe again.
“They’re safe. Master Fu has them. He brought Tikki to visit a couple of times.”
Tikki. That name means something. At its mention, a warmth spreads through her, emboldening her. Another name sits on the tip of her tongue and she tries it aloud.
“Chat Noir?”
“I’m here. I’m not leaving your side until I know you’re okay,” the blonde boy says.
His face is concerned but soft and she reaches out to stroke his cheek. His eyes close at her touch. “I love you, don’t I?”
New tears fill his eyes and he gives her a watery smile. Her own cheeks feel wet and he wipes her tears away.
“I love you, my lady.”
“Hawk Moth,” she says. “He did this, didn’t he?”
“My father,” the boy sobs. “He did this.”
Yes. Hawk Moth’s lair is in the Agreste mansion, Hawk Moth is Gabriel. Chat Noir is Adrien and his father is Hawk Moth. She reaches out to him.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why? You did nothing wrong.”
“Your father. How are you coping?”
His smile is forced, his eyes are indifferent. “I’m not. I just want you to get better. I’ll worry about him another time.”
She sinks into her pillows and tears flow as sobs wrack her body. Her throat hurts and her eyes sting. She’s not crying for herself now, but for Adrien. While she slept, he has been living his nightmare for real. She found his mother but in the worst possible circumstances. He has no closure, only more pain.
There’s something else. Rocks, broken glass, crying. She remembers now, or rather, doesn’t and panic surges through her. She tries to stand up but her muscles are weak and there are tubes everywhere, holding her down.
“Marinette, please rest. I’m only worried about you right now.”
Tikki, spots on!
She grasps his hands with all her might, he needs to understand. “Adrien! My Lucky Charm! I didn’t cast the Miraculous Cure.”